3 Other Apps to Help at Tax Time

April 7, 2015

In the U.S.?

FreshBooks is here to help make accounting easy and take the stress out of doing your taxes. While FreshBooks makes invoicing and expense tracking easy, there are other apps FreshBooks works with that can help with some of tax time’s other tasks.

For small business owners travel can be a major part of your business. Mileage expenses can begin to add up and can also be a sizeable write-off at tax time, but they have to be tracked in order to be eligible. That is where MileIQ comes into play – it is an app that runs in the background of either your iPhone or Android. It automatically tracks any trips you take in your car and allows you to classify them as either business or personal, giving you the mileage total you need at tax time. Plus it syncs with FreshBooks, automatically pushing over your business drives as expenses.

If you have employees, pay contractors, or even need to pay yourself, ZenPayroll will make it a cinch. They handle all the nitty-gritty including withholding taxes and making direct deposits. They integrate with FreshBooks so all of your payroll expenses are automatically tracked on the FreshBooks side. Tax time will also be a breeze because ZenPayroll automatically calculates your state and federal payroll taxes and then electronically files your tax documents, including all end-of-year forms.

While everyone hopes for a refund at the end of tax time, the reality is that frequently small business owners end up with a tax bill. For many people, mid-April isn’t the best time for a tax bill either; the invoices they submitted at the end of the first quarter haven’t been paid yet, but you now owe the government money. That’s where Fundbox can help out – if you have outstanding invoices that you’re waiting to get paid, Fundbox can advance you the funds. You can pay off your tax bill on time and then pay Fundbox back once the invoice has been paid. This option isn’t for everyone, but it may help some people avoid tax bill interest fees. If you’re potentially eligible, you’ll find a link to ‘Get an Advance’ at the top of your outstanding invoices in FreshBooks.

In Canada?

FreshBooks is here to help make accounting easy and take the stress out of doing your taxes. While FreshBooks makes invoicing and expense tracking easy, there are other apps FreshBooks works with that can help with some of tax time’s other tasks.

SimpleTax or UFile

You can still file your taxes manually – picking up the forms, filling them out by hand, and then physically mailing them. Many small business owners though would rather file online and FreshBooks has two recommendations for services. UFile has been around for a long time and has paid options that are available as either installation software or as an online solution. SimpleTax is a newer service, is online only, and works on a pay-what-you-want basis. Regardless of which service suits your needs better, both of them will make filing your return both secure and easy.

If you have employees, or even need to pay yourself, Payment Evolution will make it a cinch. They handle all the nitty-gritty including withholding taxes and making direct deposits. They also integrate with FreshBooks so all of your timesheets are automatically populated in Payment Evolution. Tax time will also be a breeze because Payment Evolution tracks everything for you – you’ll know exactly how much you paid, to whom, and when.

FreshBooks provides you and your accountant with reports to help make tax time fast and painless. Sometimes, though, your business needs specific reports that FreshBooks doesn’t offer, or you want to take a look at your data in targeted ways. Normally this would mean spending time in Excel building pivot tables and formulas, but that’s where Easy Insight comes in. Easy Insight allows you to pull in data from your FreshBooks account and mould it into reports that can highlight trends and give you a deeper understanding of your business.

about the author

FreshBooks is the #1 accounting software in the cloud designed to make billing painless for small businesses and their teams. Today, over 10 million small businesses use FreshBooks to effortlessly send professional looking invoices, organize expenses and track their billable time.